


Debts of the Heart

by Lunarium



Category: Voltron: From the Ashes
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Mpreg, Reminiscing, Soulmates, mentions of crucification, reincarnated lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: After Jayce and Vega seal Voltron away forever, Jayce reflects back on his late husband.





	Debts of the Heart

“So how long have you known one another?” Vega asked. Cackling of campfire and clacking of pieces on the Gorblonthian checkers game board followed his question, surrounded by nothing more in the silence of the desert. Jayce set the cup of tea down as he felt the eyes of the great robot buried in the mountain far behind glaring at him through layers of stone. 

“Long time,” he replied.

“Figured. Seemed you knew each other before orientation.” 

Jayce smiled at the memory. The first time Vega met them, Kirin had his arm over his shoulder such that Vega had asked if they were conjoined twins or a married couple. “Oh yeah. Much longer than that.” 

He peered into the slowly-swirling tea-film. Vega, for all his heritage, being a sand picker, for being taught by monks, would not believe Jayce if he told him what he suspected:

That he had piloted Voltron before. And perhaps Vega had too, though it was difficult to tell who he was meant to be—Lance, was he?

“How much longer?” Vega asked. 

“You—you’ll just think I’m insane.” 

“Try me.”

⁂

A night on a wide desert not unlike the Faye Zone, in the cold and with only himself for comfort. Hours passed and he had pondered the matter for the umpteenth time on whether it was best to bury or cremate the bodies of his fallen comrades. 

“Sven, come in,” Keith had spoken into the comms, though the pleas for help grew weaker each time. If the other pilots were gone, then so was his husband—but, no, Sven wouldn’t allow—he was too strong—“Sven!” Coughing heavily, he paused in his trek to place a hand on his stomach as a little kick followed. 

Locating a stretch of flat earth a distance away from the giant robot, as not to disturb them should Voltron ever rise again, Keith buried each of his friends side by side. He left a patch for Sven, just in case, as he too was a pilot at one time. 

Time passed.

*

He found Sven—Haggar had set him up for Keith to find: crucified in the middle of nowhere, disemboweled, all the suffering and pain plainly etched on his greying handsome face. 

Horrified, Keith fell to his knees. 

“Sven! NO! It should have been me! Not you—not Pidge, not Allura—not any of you! It should have been me!” 

As panic and grief seized him, he doubled over, gripping his stomach and gasping in pain. And before the fallen Sven, under a moonless night, their child came into the world. 

Keith named her Kyra. Fearing for her life, he wept, terrified she would die, for food was scarce and his own body could provide her very little nutrients. But she persevered. Always, he found clean water with which he could feed her, and to his amazement their Kyra survived. 

He buried Sven in the spot he had set for him, and made the region his home for himself and Kyra. And every night, lost in the endless sands, when Keith would find that Kyra survived the night, the infant of the dunes to the child of the dunes, he would thank Sven who must have watched from the heavens.

⁂

A small group of monks had happened by three years later, and to them he told his tale. He wept freely as they offered him the first true warm meal in years. One of the monks knew of Sven and recounted to him the full tale of how Sven had met his end. Keith wept into his daughter’s shoulder as he held her, the last piece of Sven he had. 

The monks took care of him and Kyra. Weakened by his years out in the desert, he did not wish the same fate to befall their daughter, but the monks had been incredibly kind.

News of the sole remaining Voltron hero carried, and more Arusians came to pay him respects. Around the fallen pilots they built a tomb, and Keith found himself a sage to the newcomers who had begun to build a city around the giant robot. 

By the time of Keith Kogane’s passing, Kyra Kogane had already set forth a search for new pilots to one day take on the mantle of her father’s legacy.

⁂

“On your left, asshole.” 

The voice carried amusement and—was that endearment? Jayce couldn’t quite place it but he obeyed and avoided the path, earning himself precious few seconds that earned him ultimate victory. 

“Good job there, cadet,” congratulated his simulation partner as he ran up to greet him. Meeting his eyes for the first time, Jayce had the weird feeling they had met before. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Kirin Kogane. And you’re Jayce Holt. I know.” 

“Kogane, eh?” 

“Yep. Kirin, son of Krolia, daughter of Kylen, son of Korrine, daughter of Kieran, son of Kala, daughter of Kyra, daughter of Keith Kogane.” 

He folded his arms and gave Jayce a knowing smile. “Not much else to me, really.”

⁂

Not much else. Jayce snorted as his gaze lingered on the Gorblonthian checkers board before him. He would believe it when he’d see it, and nothing he had encountered since meeting Kirin Kogane had ever proven otherwise. 

“Bastard,” Vega laughed. “‘Not much else to me.’

“Go on.”

⁂

“Jayce, you need to talk?” Kirin asked, inviting himself into their quarters. “I know you’re upset about Teacher Hophi and the Red Team getting the keys.” 

Jayce considered pushing his teammate out of the room and locking their private quarters from entry, but even he knew that was beyond childish. 

“Get out, Kirin.” 

Ignoring his leader’s command, Kirin settled himself at his usual spot at their table and picked up the deck of cards abandoned in the center. “Mao?” 

Scoffing, Jayce slouched across from him. “Who does Arone think he is? We’re clearly the better team—we know how to work as a single unit!—but always, _always!_ , Arone finds some way to cheat and best us! It shouldn’t be him out there!” 

He watched Kirin shuffle the deck, observing his long, slender finger deftly working through them. Good with his hands at anything: cards, machinery, at…many other things. 

“Strip mender,” Jayce ordered after a few moments. 

Kirin stopped and regarded him with slightly raised eyebrows, shuffling paused. 

Jayce glanced aside for a moment before meeting his gaze. “You heard me.”

⁂

Jayce smiled at the memory. “If I had know he was hoping I would say those exact words. He knew some time alone, just the two of us, was what I needed most.” 

Vega nodded. “Yep. I was wondering why Kirin had been gone for a long time, and when he appeared it was to usher us to go see you. Should have put two and two together.” 

His younger self would have smacked Vega for his smug grin, but Jayce only smiled fondly. A young person’s tactic that proved effective all the same. 

“Yes. And it all worked out in the end. Somehow.” 

He glanced back as that ache filled him again. His lips still tingled with Kirin’s lingering kiss, his skin prickling with his touch right before their luck had turned for the better...if one could see it as such. 

“We were the world’s only hope, and for what?” he said softly. Getting to meld with the legendary defender had been one of the most spiritual experiences of his life, not that he could call himself a spiritual person up to this point (Kirin was a different matter). But in there, feeling more bonded with his fellow pilots, nothing could compare. 

The look of pride, of _knowing_ , lay in Kirin’s eyes when they disembarked from the robot. He knew. He was satisfied. 

The battle had not been without its price, but they had put an end to Haggar, the same evil witch who had, as Kirin had related to him while trailing a finger down his naked chest, who had murdered Sven, Keith’s husband, and mounted him on a cross so Keith would find him; how the sight of him induced terrible grief and the labor that led to Kyra’s birth. 

Jayce had begun to wonder if they were, in fact, the reincarnated lovers of Sven and Keith seeking to tend to some unfinished business. 

Finishing off Haggar was only the beginning. 

Voltron had since seen other enemies, other battles, other victories. 

His team valued peacetime. Rei and Sascha, a member from the Green Team, got married a year after defeating Haggar, and it introduced the idea to them. Kirin and he married a couple years later. Vega and Niki bounced around the idea for years since but eventually got around to it. 

Life wasn’t exactly perfect after that, but they were all happy. 

And then all too soon, Jayce was burying Kirin. They had no biological children together, although they had adopted three from the local village destroyed during one of the more devastating battles. 

End of the Kogane line. Yet Kirin’s face had shone with a beautiful, peaceful smile. And for a one maddening moment, Jayce wondered if Kirin was happy to be the first among them to pass away, reversing the pain he had suffered so long ago of having to bury Sven and all of his friends. 

“Your fucking bastard,” Jayce had wept and kissed his husband’s brow. “Love ya, kiddo. Sleep well. Wait for me.” 

Jayce bowed his head at the memory, and the grunt from Vega told him he knew what he was thinking. He peered out, studying the great expanse of the desert. 

“Miss them all every day,” Vega said. “Man, we were such asswipes.” 

Jayce drained the last of his tea and glanced back at Voltron, buried away for perhaps forever. For the good of all. 

“Yeah. But hopefully now humanity, and us, no longer need Voltron. All debts have been paid.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Kogane surname was kept, regardless if the direct line before was a man or woman, due to the legacy surrounding it. 
> 
> There’s a number of references to other Voltron iterations here: Kala (Voltron Force), Krolia (VLD), . Kogane is also the surname that dates back to GoLion and which was used again in the Devil’s Due Publishing comics. 
> 
> "On your left, asshole" combines two well-known lines from other characters I love: "On your left" (Steve Rogers/The Winter Solider) and "Hey, asshole!" from Glenn/The Walking Dead. <3


End file.
